St. Petersburg Times
4/17/98

Actors in the musical Rent, now showing at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, don't have much trouble paying theirs.  But for Jasmine M. Baird, at least, it wasn't always so easy.

"I have the coolest job in the world," says Baird, who plays lesbian lawyer Joanne Jefferson in the show, and who not so long ago was forced to work as a health club attendant.

Rent is so popular that Baird and a fellow cast member attracted about 90 fans to Tampa's Main Library Thursday, where they answered questions ranging from their lives before Rent to their pets' names. "How did you get there?" was the most popular question of the hour-long talk.

"Never lose focus," advised the curly-haired, syrup-voiced Baird.

"Audition even if you don't want the part," said actor D'Monroe, who plays Benjamin Coffin III, a landlord with money on his mind.

The musical is set in New York City and is populated with artists and aspiring performers living on the edge, hoping for success, coping with HIV, and falling in love.

The show plays in Tampa through Sunday and is selling out virtually every night.  It has inspired some to wait up to 19 hours in line to buy the coveted $20 front row tickets that go on sale each afternoon.

Rent works so well because it captures the human condition of the 1990's, according to fans who came to library Thursday.

The show seems to awaken the Bohemian daydreams of young people, who are seeing the show in droves.  At the same time, the musical echoes the rough edges of life itself.

"It defines our generation-what we are like, what we want to have," said Jennifer Pousson,22, who came to Tampa from Lafayette,La., to see the musical for the third time.

"Not that we want AIDS," she continued, "but we have it."

Said her mother, Ella Beth Goetschius, who also made the trip, "These kids are not living The Sound of Music."

Lynn Brainard, 50, who's seen the show five times, drove from Spring Hill with her 15-year-old son to get a close-up look at the Rent actors.  "I feel like I could be friends with those characters," she said.